Preventing suicide: a community engagement toolkit

Overview

Communities have an important role to play in suicide prevention. They can provide support to people who are vulnerable and to those who have made an attempt on their life. They can provide comfort to people who have lost someone to suicide and can also help fight stigma.

WHO’s Preventing suicide: a community engagement toolkit, released today, is a step-by-step guide for people who would like to initiate suicide prevention activities in their community. It describes a participatory bottom-up process by which communities (including community leaders, health workers, parliamentarians, teachers, social workers, police and firefighters and business leaders) can work together to identify, prioritize and implement activities that are important and appropriate to their local context and that can influence and shape policy and services. Advice and practical tools to help with goal setting, stakeholder mapping and development of an action plan are included as are examples of successful initiatives in Canada, India, Kenya, Nepal, Trinidad and Tobago and the USA.

The toolkit was developed in collaboration with the Mental Health Commission of Canada.